The State Professional Control Department investigated the activities of mining companies that are active in Hanbogd, Gurvantes, Tsogttsetsii and Mandalovoo soums of Umnugobi aimag and presented the results, yesterday. The department’s board meeting decided to temporarily halt the activities of Ivanhoe Mines Mongolia Inc., Chinhua-Mak, Tavan Tolgoi Trans and Pu-Shin Co., reports the newspaper Unuudur. The activity of Buman Trade Co. has been stopped for using poisonous chemical elements.

The chief of the Division Nature and Environment Control of the State Professional Control Department Ya. Ariunzul said that Ivanhoe Mines Mongolia Inc. used 52 thousand cubic metres of sand from Undain River, 40 thousand cubic metres gravel from various hills they saw and earth work of 360 thousand cubic metres were done without any environmental impact assessment breaching the law on making an environmental impact assessment for any construction of buildings and objects or their extension. The nature protection plan was not approved by the relevant soum governors for the areas covered by 83 licenses. The activity of the Project Oyu Tolgoi was temporarly halted until the irregularities and law breaches are corrected. The company was given a statement from the State Professional Control Department to report the measures for eliminating the breaches by December 15, 2006.

Above mentioned breaches were also discovered in the activities of the companies Tavan Tolgoi Trans and Chihua-Mak which transport coal to China. The law provision on laying special roads for using trucks of the load capacity of 50-100 tons, resolving where to exploit the coal and how to rehabilitate the nature was breached and hundreds of heavy load trucks have been transporting coal until now. It was discovered that in the PU-Shin company about 100 Chinese workers were working in coal exploitation without any labor permission for Mongolia and payment for labor place. The coal transportation by heavy load trucks has already seriously damaged the sensitive Gobi soil and caused excessive dustiness in that area. The professional control inspectors required immediately to stop polluting the restricted areas with coal and dust.